Prince is to sue YouTube - in a bid "to reclaim his art on the internet". The 'Purple Rain' singer is launching legal action against Google Inc. - who own the video-sharing website - for copyright infringement, in an effort to end the unauthorized use of clips of his performances and music videos.
A statement released on the star's behalf, said: "Prince believes that as an artist, the music rights must remain with the artist and copyrights should be protected across the board."
The pop superstar added that he could not accept YouTube had no control over what clips were posted on the site. The statement continued: "YouTube are clearly able to filter porn and pedophile material but appear to choose not to filter out the unauthorized music and film content which is core to their business success."
YouTube insists it will work with the artist to monitor what music content appears on the site. The website's chief lawyer, Zahavah Levine, said: "Most content owners understand that we respect copyris, we work every day to help them manage their content, and we are developing state-of-the- rt tools to let them do that even better."
Prince also plans to sue online auctioneers eBay and Pirate Bay, who are accused of encouraging music piracy. The ‘Controversy’ singer has instructed Web Sheriff, a British-based company specializing in policing the Internet for pirated content, to act on his behalf. John Giacobbi, managing director of Web Sheriff, said: "Prince's actions are a brave and pioneering step to challenge the status quo and hand control over Internet rights back to the artists."
Prince is no stranger to taking on huge companies for the sake of his musical ownership. In the 90s, he was involved in a contractual dispute with his record label Warner Bros, who he accused of stifling his creative freedom by limiting the amount of albums he could release. The battle led to Prince changing his name to an unpronounceable symbol until 2000 when he was free of all contractual obligations to the company. During the dispute, he famously would only appear in public with the word ‘Slave’ scrawled across his face.
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